The name of Mark Scott-Crossley‚ wanted for by the police for questioning‚ will ring many bells in the minds of people who remember a horrific lion's den murder in 2004.
Scott-Crossley is not yet an official suspect‚ but police are searching for him in connection with an attempted murder case after a wildlife employee‚ Silence Mabunda‚ was attacked‚ dragged around‚ and then driven over by a 4x4 vehicle last week.
Mabunda was badly injured.
Even before this recent case‚ Scott-Crossley’s life is one that has been marked by a serious of dramatic milestones.
When Mark was just three and his older brother Sean was five‚ their mother Noreen gave birth to a baby boy.
Named Hayden by his parents‚ the new bundle of joy was a welcome addition to the family – but shortly after birth he was diagnosed with a disease that affects the large intestine.
When he was only four-and-a-half months old‚ he died.
Mark‚ a toddler‚ thus had the misfortune of being in the care of a grieving mother.
A few years later‚ his mom fell pregnant again – this time with a baby girl whom she named Tracy-Lee.
By then‚ Mark was seven and Tracy-Lee was somewhat of a “laatlammetjie” in the Scott-Crossley family.
He formed a strong bond with his sister‚ and then‚ when she was 10 and he was 17‚ Noreen and Mark’s father (Paul) got divorced.
Cut to August 1‚ 1988.
Just a month before‚ it would have been Hayden’s 18th birthday.
Mark was 21 by then and his little sister Tracy-Lee 14.
On Saturday‚ July 30‚ she was taken to the doctor as she wasn’t feeling well.
That Monday‚ she was kept home from school. Her mom asked her if she wanted to go with her to work and she said no‚ she would stay home in bed and later walk to Cresta Shopping Centre.
It was this plan for the day that would come to haunt Mark for the rest of his life: Tracy-Lee asked him if he would walk with her to Cresta but he said no‚ he had other things he needed to do.
It was on that fateful walk that Tracy-Lee was lured into the car of paedophile Gert van Rooyen and his partner Joey Haarhoff.
A huge manhunt ensued‚ but Tracy-Lee was never found‚ and over the next two years‚ her kidnapping would be just the first of a spate of such cases that held the suburbs of Johannesburg in the grip of fear.
Joan Horn (12)‚ Yolande Wessels‚ (13)‚ Anne-Marie Wapenaar (12)‚ Fiona Harvey (12) and Odette Boucher (11) all joined Tracy-Lee as “the six missing girls” whose faces appeared on milk cartons and in the media.
Media attention focused on the parents wracked with anxiety‚ but the girls’ siblings‚ including Mark‚ had their lives thrown into turmoil and eventually‚ just deep grief as the girls were never found. Any hope of further clues ended when in January 1990‚ Van Rooyen shot Haarhoff and himself dead as police were closing in on them.
Tracy-Lee‚ along with the other girls‚ eventually disappeared from the collective public mind.
But then‚ in 2004‚ her brother Mark was involved in an horrific crime in which a man named Nelson Chisale (Mark’s former employee) was thrown into a lion’s den by Mark and two other workers where he was mauled almost beyond recognition.
In October the following year‚ Mark was sentenced to life in prison for murder.
While he was behind bars‚ another dramatic event took place “on the outside”. In March 2007‚ some adolescent bones were found on the beach near Umdloti in KwaZulu-Natal‚ just half a kilometre from a holiday resort that Van Rooyen and Haarhoff had visited.
Suddenly‚ Tracy-Lee’s parents and siblings had renewed hope and the world was watching all over again.
Anyone who had followed the Van Rooyen case back in the late 1980s held their breath: could the fate of the six missing school girls finally be illuminated and thereby put to rest?
Media reports flared up again – but as it turned out‚ the DNA proved not to be that of any of the schoolgirls.
Later that year‚ September 2007‚ Mark’s life took yet another unexpected turn when the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein set aside his murder conviction and substituted it into five years’ imprisonment.
The reason was that prosecution had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Chisale was still alive when he was fed to the lions.
But even behind bars‚ Scott-Crossley was associated with violence. While serving his sentence at Barberton Maximum Security Prison he assaulted a fellow inmate‚ Jacobus Cordier‚ but claimed it was in self defence saying that the latter had attacked him with a sharpened spoon.
In 2008‚ he was released on parole and returned to his game farm outside Hoedspruit in Limpopo Province.
Once again‚ his name faded from the public realm… until now.
The life of Mark Scott-Crossley - the man who was involved in a horrific crime in which Nelson Chisale was thrown into a lion’s den
The name of Mark Scott-Crossley‚ wanted for by the police for questioning‚ will ring many bells in the minds of people who remember a horrific lion's den murder in 2004.
Scott-Crossley is not yet an official suspect‚ but police are searching for him in connection with an attempted murder case after a wildlife employee‚ Silence Mabunda‚ was attacked‚ dragged around‚ and then driven over by a 4x4 vehicle last week.
Mabunda was badly injured.
Even before this recent case‚ Scott-Crossley’s life is one that has been marked by a serious of dramatic milestones.
When Mark was just three and his older brother Sean was five‚ their mother Noreen gave birth to a baby boy.
Named Hayden by his parents‚ the new bundle of joy was a welcome addition to the family – but shortly after birth he was diagnosed with a disease that affects the large intestine.
When he was only four-and-a-half months old‚ he died.
Mark‚ a toddler‚ thus had the misfortune of being in the care of a grieving mother.
A few years later‚ his mom fell pregnant again – this time with a baby girl whom she named Tracy-Lee.
By then‚ Mark was seven and Tracy-Lee was somewhat of a “laatlammetjie” in the Scott-Crossley family.
He formed a strong bond with his sister‚ and then‚ when she was 10 and he was 17‚ Noreen and Mark’s father (Paul) got divorced.
Cut to August 1‚ 1988.
Just a month before‚ it would have been Hayden’s 18th birthday.
Mark was 21 by then and his little sister Tracy-Lee 14.
On Saturday‚ July 30‚ she was taken to the doctor as she wasn’t feeling well.
That Monday‚ she was kept home from school. Her mom asked her if she wanted to go with her to work and she said no‚ she would stay home in bed and later walk to Cresta Shopping Centre.
It was this plan for the day that would come to haunt Mark for the rest of his life: Tracy-Lee asked him if he would walk with her to Cresta but he said no‚ he had other things he needed to do.
It was on that fateful walk that Tracy-Lee was lured into the car of paedophile Gert van Rooyen and his partner Joey Haarhoff.
A huge manhunt ensued‚ but Tracy-Lee was never found‚ and over the next two years‚ her kidnapping would be just the first of a spate of such cases that held the suburbs of Johannesburg in the grip of fear.
Joan Horn (12)‚ Yolande Wessels‚ (13)‚ Anne-Marie Wapenaar (12)‚ Fiona Harvey (12) and Odette Boucher (11) all joined Tracy-Lee as “the six missing girls” whose faces appeared on milk cartons and in the media.
Media attention focused on the parents wracked with anxiety‚ but the girls’ siblings‚ including Mark‚ had their lives thrown into turmoil and eventually‚ just deep grief as the girls were never found. Any hope of further clues ended when in January 1990‚ Van Rooyen shot Haarhoff and himself dead as police were closing in on them.
Tracy-Lee‚ along with the other girls‚ eventually disappeared from the collective public mind.
But then‚ in 2004‚ her brother Mark was involved in an horrific crime in which a man named Nelson Chisale (Mark’s former employee) was thrown into a lion’s den by Mark and two other workers where he was mauled almost beyond recognition.
In October the following year‚ Mark was sentenced to life in prison for murder.
While he was behind bars‚ another dramatic event took place “on the outside”. In March 2007‚ some adolescent bones were found on the beach near Umdloti in KwaZulu-Natal‚ just half a kilometre from a holiday resort that Van Rooyen and Haarhoff had visited.
Suddenly‚ Tracy-Lee’s parents and siblings had renewed hope and the world was watching all over again.
Anyone who had followed the Van Rooyen case back in the late 1980s held their breath: could the fate of the six missing school girls finally be illuminated and thereby put to rest?
Media reports flared up again – but as it turned out‚ the DNA proved not to be that of any of the schoolgirls.
Later that year‚ September 2007‚ Mark’s life took yet another unexpected turn when the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein set aside his murder conviction and substituted it into five years’ imprisonment.
The reason was that prosecution had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Chisale was still alive when he was fed to the lions.
But even behind bars‚ Scott-Crossley was associated with violence. While serving his sentence at Barberton Maximum Security Prison he assaulted a fellow inmate‚ Jacobus Cordier‚ but claimed it was in self defence saying that the latter had attacked him with a sharpened spoon.
In 2008‚ he was released on parole and returned to his game farm outside Hoedspruit in Limpopo Province.
Once again‚ his name faded from the public realm… until now.
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